17/100 Genesis/Cloud.
Post-DoC, so Genesis is a nice bloke, with long hair (the DoC concept art says so...)
Oh yeah, and I'm a believer that Nero is actually conscious inside of Weiss, in case you began to wonder...
Heal
Just Need A Little…
Cloud Strife's life ran in one big routine. A cycle that only a world-threatening calamity could disrupt.
Mornings, he'd wake up dead on eight, five minutes later he'd be in the bathroom for 20 minutes. Tifa would stand outside and demand for him to hurry up five times before she wandered off in a huff.
After he was dressed and fed, the young blonde would go outside, dust his beloved Fenrir from anything that dared to settle over night and then he'd go out and do his delivery rounds, returning around mid-afternoon, when Tifa has prepared him a nice lunch to which he would say he'd already eaten.
For the rest of the day, Cloud would be outside fussing over his bike, on his hands and knees polishing it, stroking it and just genuinely loving it to the degree is was pitifully obsessive.
The days ran like boring clockwork.
Boring it was, but complain Cloud did not, and neither did Genesis. His daily routine was possibly even less eventful.
Mornings, he'd wake up when the sun shone brightly in his face, do the essentials and spend the rest of the day at his brother's bedside.
Weiss had been unconscious for some time, giving Genesis plenty of time to make his way through a lifetime of literature in the hope he'd find a way to revive his little brothers.
After 2 weeks, the situation was getting tedious.
The redhead was hardly eating, wasting away in the eyes of those who knew him, but they had all passed away at this point.
The white haired DEEPGROUND SOLDIER was gradually showing signs of life, the occasional flick of fingers or Nero's habit of scrunching up his nose as he slept. Other than that, he was lifeless.
One morning, Genesis sat by the window, half asleep watching the hustle and bustle of the streets below him as usual. There was a quiet knock at the door to which he responded equally as calmly.
The door slowly swung open and the young, black haired barmaid stood there smiling warmly. "Anything?"
Genesis shook his head, glancing to his brother's bed, to the body in which both Weiss and Nero now resided. He pushed himself to his feet and picked up his long crimson jacket that was hanging from the foot of the bed, slinging it over his broad shoulders, over his sleeveless black sweater and standard SOLDIER uniform.
"Are you going somewhere?" Tifa questioned curiously. She hadn't seen the redhead this active since he'd first shown up with his unconscious brother held tightly in his arms.
Glancing at the girl as he fastened all the leather straps and buckles of his coat, Genesis replied coolly. "I need to stretch my legs. Besides, I've always tried to encourage them to stand on their own two feet, yet here I am, fussing over them like a mother…"
His tone earned a disapproving look from Tifa, hands on her hips. "Nothing wrong with that. It's just what it's like being a big brother,"
Smiling absentmindedly, Genesis leant over his brother's bedside, brushing a few stray strand of ashen hair out of his face before kissing his forehead lightly.
"It won't be long 'til they wake and Nero can probably sort himself out,"
The SOLDIER hummed accordingly as he pulled away, flicking his long hair back over his shoulder and followed the barmaid out of the room and down the stairs.
Down in the bar, as soon as the clock chimed 3pm, Fenrir's smooth purring engine could be heard coming up the street and settling into the back lot of 7th Heaven. Moments later Cloud walked in, still wearing his sunglasses and blonde hair windswept but still defying gravity. He gave the redhead an acknowledging nod of his, but nothing more.
Cloud had barely met Genesis before his arrival shortly after the OMEGA incident. He only knew him as the SOLDIER 1st Class that people feared for his unpredictably and temper more than they admired his skills and respected him. He only knew him as the SOLDIER 1st Class who went AWOL and tried to commit mass genocide and who had driven Sephiroth insane, let alone tried to steal his own cells for a personal benefit. Cloud was quite right to be cautious of the redhead, but by no means did he hate him… after all, Zack had liked him, even after everything they went through.
The quiet blonde simply took a bottle of water from behind the bar then left to give a certain motor a little TLC.
Genesis downed the rest of his liquor and quickly followed, leaving Tifa confounded and alone in the bar.
She had once heard a rumour of Genesis… looseness when it came to lovers and she knew all to well of how Cloud was once hot for anything in a SOLDIER uniform, but she hoped that both men had wizened with age and personal losses.
She sighed, shaking her head and continued polishing glasses.
It had to be something in that mako.
"Strife," Genesis called out, his voice was smooth as to not surprise the blonde whose 'Fenrir time' was always just him and the bike.
The blonde spun around, pulling off his shades in the process.
The redhead stepped forwards slowly, arms spread in a friendly kind of gesture. "I fear we may not have gotten off to a particularly good start," He settled down a pile of empty wooden crates that had once held bottles of some generic alcohol a few metres away from the ex-trooper.
"What makes you say that?" Cloud replied, turning his attention back to Fenrir, brushing some road dust out of the wheels.
"Everything. I just feel that me past has preceded me and-"
"Not at all, you're still the SOLDIER I always wanted to work with," The blonde quickly glanced back.
Genesis broke into a slight smile, not cold and bitter like those Cloud had seen as a trooper or in Modeoheilm. But, as soon as it came, it was gone, replaced with that sombre look Cloud was used to seeing when he'd check on the Rhapsodos brothers in the evening.
"Still, the Sephiroth incident will always… haunt," The redhead muttered, voice as smooth and thick as honey, spoken from a mouth that was rumoured to taste equally as sweet.
Nonetheless, the polishing cloth in Cloud's hand dropped at the sound of the General's name. It was still associated with too many painful memories. He didn't bother speaking; the Commander's hands were immediately upon his shoulders, soothing and apologetic. The other man's next words were equally as effected, after all, Cloud knew all too well of Genesis' relationship with the General and how it must have felt to watch him break, knowing it was his own fault.
"The wound is still sore, after all these years," The redhead noted, gloved hands skimming along the slightly tanned skin of Cloud's arms, running over the tell-tale muscles of a swordsman. "He had a habit of weaselling into your mind and being, didn't he?"
Cloud immediately came to realize that he was completely unsure of just who the scarlet man was speaking of. Genesis had been close to both Sephiroth and Zack, evidently shown when he had requested to be taken to where Zack had died purely to say goodbye and thank you to a SOLDIER, a friend and lover that had given his him his life back.
The blonde found himself leaning into Genesis' warm, muscular frame, into the arms that promised him complete protection, yet he warned of the habits of his previous self; how his affections were as free as water, quick to come in all their intensity but still evanescent.
"I think what be both need is a distraction… a vice,"
Nodding slowly in agreement, Cloud lost himself almost completely. It had been so long since he'd been embraced this tenderly, not since that night in Nibelheim with Zack. He hadn't been touched at all by another male since…Sephiroth…
No, he frowned. Sephiroth was the enemy, it was wrong…
During his mental musings, Cloud was spun around and pushed gently back and lifted so he was sitting on Fenrir, legs parted, a gap with Genesis was only too eager to fill.
A crimson-gloved hand rose to brush over his rose-tinted cheeks, lining those constantly pouting lips. His eyes remained wide and blue, like they had been when Zack first fell for him, how they were that night when Sephiroth…
Genesis found himself staring.
To every touch, the boy was so frighteningly subservient it was suddenly as plain as day why the ebony haired SOLDIER was so taken to him, he impersonated innocence, even if he had long since lost his own.
When the blonde opened his mouth, Genesis expected him to wet his lips, but instead he spoke. "You're still in love with Sephiroth, aren't you?"
Hands slid down, suddenly weighted with the greatest regret. Genesis' head inclined to the side, almost as if he was using his long hair to conceal his eyes so they could not betray the extent of his own affliction. His lips curved into a sweet smile when Cloud brushed the auburn locks back. "More than anything," He whispered quietly. He absentmindedly toyed with the zipper of Cloud's sweater, but made no signs of going to drag it down his chest. "I've taken everything from myself. My brothers are in a coma because I failed them. My best friend died. My lovers have died. I killed my own parents because of a grudge I have carried since I was eight years old. I-"
Silence came when Cloud roughly grabbed the collar of the SOLDIER's sweater and yanked him down, forcing lips against lips. They met for a momentary clash of teeth, tongues frantically twisting around in a fast paced dance, daring one another for a desperate response, to take this kiss and turn it into another quick fuck, to which they would probably spend another week unable to talk to each other in guilt, or more likely now, they wouldn't be able to stop.
They pulled away breathless, eyes ablaze with mako-fuelled passion.
"You still have me,"
Genesis smiled again, though not as sweet as the last, this had more a razor edge, before he lowered his mouth to the blonde's neck.
"We can get through and help each other," Cloud continued irregularly as Genesis' teeth began biting into his soft flesh.
This would explain the marks Zack so very often wandered in with. Marks to which the up-beat teenager would just smile and laugh about when questioned about it.
Cloud couldn't help but smile, an expression he was getting used to using again after the afternoon in the church in Midgar after the failed reunion staged by the three remnants.
Sensing this, Genesis raised his head, brows furrowed in curiosity. He ignored protesting whimpers and hands that tied in his long hair to guide him back.
With a face that screamed inexperience and purity, yet with a position that betrayed his eyes; the way the blonde ground himself against the older SOLDIER, there was a lot more to Cloud than what met the eyes.
His small stature and seeming fragility lied about his strength and skill.
The way his lips curved, hinting nothing but naivety, and the way his eyes shone brightly in the afternoon sun, childish and cute, completely contrasted the fact this boy was begging for it…
Smirking in a way that for so long had been his signature, Genesis finally threw everything to the wind; there was a part of him that could never change… ecstasy and adrenaline were apart of him, as much as the instinct to fight, to survive, to exist.
He decided to follow suit of two out of three of his most significant lovers and try to find out everything about the little Strife boy who couldn't make it into SOLDIER but defeated the unbeatable Sephiroth more than once.
The Commander made another attack on those pale lips, still smirking, drawing out a quiet strangled moan.
Hearing the silence, when usually there would be the splashing of water or Cloud's muttering as he worked, Tifa slung her washcloth over her shoulder and peered out of the back window.
Some part of her expected to see Cloud pressed hard into Fenrir, head to the side and legs parted; Genesis fit snugly in the space created and he worked his lips down the blonde's slim but still strong naked chest.
All she could do was hope Denzel was watching from his bedroom window; the boy worshiped the ground Cloud stepped on, so who knows what this would lead to…
And still, Cloud liked to maintain he wasn't a cockslut…
Seriously.
It had to be something in that mako.
